APA Citation:
Weller, M., Pegler, C., Mason, R. (2005). Use of innovative technologies on an e-learning course. The Internet and Higher Education, 8(1), 61-71.
Review:
This article examines the use of four innovative technologies incorporated in the design of an online course, Learning in the Connected Economy offered by the Open University in the United Kingdom. The four technologies were blogging, instant messaging, audio conferencing and Harvard's Rotisserie system. There were no face to face meetings in this course. The content of this course was divided in 155 learning objects presented over four blocks. Each block used one of the four technologies to assist in delivering the content and information to the students and last approximately 2 months. The learning blocks applied text, audio content, animation, audio conferences and web casts to cover areas of learning in each block. Also, blogging, instant messaging and other collaborative tools were explored as well.
Web blogs are the fastest growing technology over the last few years. There are basically two types of blogs; the journal or a filter-style blog in which the blogger will post comments as well as links to other web based information. Blogging has been simplified do to easy to use tools such as Blogger.com, Radio Userland and MoveableType which allow users to post information from any location with Internet access. The three primary uses of educational blogging are 1) group blogs 2) academics keeping blogs and 3) students using blogs. The students in the online class were provided with instructions on how to set up a blog, with references on blogging, and then shown a variety of popular blogs so they could gain a sense of the type of writing style and commentary used in the blogging community. Then they were required to set up their own blogs and use them for posting and commentary on other students' blogs for several weeks.
Audio conferencing was the next technology to be explored. Audio conferencing was the most familiar of the technologies to the students. Many of the students have used some sort of audio conferencing in the past either at school or with work related projects. That is primarily because audio conferencing is building on telephone conferencing in which the students were familiar with. Audio conferencing is synchronous and should be used effectively in smaller groups. This made it difficult to communicate with students in different parts of the world who were in different time zones. Another issue is that only one student can talk at a time. A set of rules needed to be implemented to how the students would take turns talking so that everyone was not talking at once.
The Rotisserie system from Harvard University was also implemented as the third technology. Some of the problems from online discussions include lack of participation, unfocused discussion and resistance to participation. Therefore Harvard University designed a "Rotisserie" system. This is a structure conferencing system that would hopefully decrease some of the above mentioned problems with online discussions. The Rotisserie is designed around a series of rounds where the students who signed up for a Rotisserie session would be sent an email letting them know to respond to a posting by a certain deadline. They could post their reply before the deadline, but their responses would not be published until the deadline had past. In the next round, each student would be assigned another posting and a deadline to post a reply to their posting and so forth until all of the rounds were completed. This system has more structure and more control of the dialogue than previous online discussions.
The use of instant messaging is the last technology explored in this article. Instant messaging allows the users to have synchronous communication with each other. The discussions using instant messaging are less formal and more relaxed than any of the other uses of technologies. Instant messaging is very popular with teenagers, stating that 74% of online teenagers use some type of instant messaging in their online communication. The students in this online course were asked to install an Instant Messaging client, and then implement the instant messaging features by arranging for online discussions with other students in the class. The students were encourage to continue using their instant messaging throughout the remainder of the class so they could communicate with other students on their buddy list.
The students were asked to evaluate their experience using these four technologies with this online course. Several questions were asked of the students and their responses were transcribed. Only three students out of 55 made negative comments regarding the uses of any of the four technologies. The negative comments included finding the technologies frustrating and unreliable, technical difficulties and time consuming. All of the other comments were positive! The most popular technologies to be used were instant messaging and audio conferencing. The least popular were blogging and the Rotisserie system. Many of the students kept using the technologies even after the class was completed because they enjoyed using the technologies like instant messaging and audio conferencing.
Relevance:
This article examines the uses of four technologies in the teaching of an online course. Since all four technologies were not used at the same time, we can examine the positive and negative aspects of relating the material to the students using each of the technologies separately. The students in the class could experience using the four technologies, one at a time, and determine for themselves which technology they would prefer to use and the reasons why. This would allow the students to reflect directly on the tools of technology and compare and contrast the four technologies independently.
Although there are other technologies that could be used, these four were implemented one at at time. In another study, one might try using a combination of audio conferencing with blogging, or the Rotisserie system with instant messaging to see if maybe a mixture of two or more technologies might be beneficial to the students. Sometimes, too many technologies at once might be over bearing for the students, but other times it might benefit the students to have more than one option to use for communicating with other students in the class. Not all students are the same types of learners, just like all students do not all enjoy communicating with each other using the same methods of technology.
James Namekata
ETEC 543
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5 comments:
Good Morning, James. I love your blog because I can always count on you having the assignment done in a timely fashion, and it helps me when I'm struggling with my own. Your research study takes place over an extended period of time and explores four new technologies and as such it opens up the possibilities for many related studies. I appreciated your follow through on naming where you thought it should go. You and I both have studies that were not conducted in the U.S. and need to take into account the availability of resources. Yours also mentioned text messaging (SMS) as a system to deliver information. I would not have considered it as appropriate as email, but I can see its use when email availability is limited.
Hey James,
Sounds like a nice study. I'd be interested to see the Rotisserie (makes me want chicken!) in action. Deadlines in online content distribution seems like it's going against the grind to me but I would have to experience it. Also, on the instant messaging, was it 1 on 1? Was it instant messaging more in a chat room style or how the "asynchronous" chat sessions sometimes work with CSUSB? My personal opinion is that these can be a big waste of time, depending on the number of people involved but again I'd have to see it in action before judgement.
Talk at you later!
Jon
Hi James,
That is fascinating about the use of instant messaging as an educational tool. This is the first I have ever heard of that being done... brilliant!
The "Rotisserie" system also seems very interesting... though unfortunately students seem not to have liked it as much. I think that one might actually have potential in a class such as this one where we need to respond to each other's blogs in a time-based manner. Maybe with the Rotisserie system we could be sure to all respond to all of the other students' blogs on a rotating basis.
Thank you for your comment on my blog last week, James.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend,
Rebecca
I really like the concept of instant messaging. It sounds like a great tool to use with the younger generations. Considering tht they are using it on a regular basis to communicate with their friends, it would be great to see research results on how effective it is.
James, I've decided yours is a great blog to post to since I can drop comments where they'll definitely seen by the instructor since you're always current. (A Web 2.0 strategy in the tradition of sitting in the front of the classroom and making an appointment with the instructor for his office hours just so he knows your name when he has to give out grades. I'm not proud.)
Not only that, but you're doing a great job. Good work finding an article that talks about IMing. I've thought about engaging my students in my classroom through podcasting and other content creation; why have I never considered IMing? One of the issues I can see is that it would be nice to use the medium for automated information. (Student texts "HW" to a six-digit number and gets an immediate reply: "p. 123, #5-25".) However, to operate such a thing, you need to set up (as in lease) an SMS server.
This will be another one of those applications that puts pressure on the districts, teachers, students and parents to come up with a way to accommodate portable media devices on campus.
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